Claims of the missionary enterprise on the medical profession : an address delivered before the Temperance Society of the College of Physicians and Surgeons of the University of the State of New York, October 28, 1842

CLAIMS

MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE

MEDICAL PROFESSION :

AN ADDRESS

DELIVERED BEFORE THE TEMPERANCE SOCIETY OF THE COLLEGE OF

PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS OF THE UNIVERSITY

OF THE STATE OF NEW-YORK,

October 588, 1842,

DANIEL J. BJACGOWAN, M. D.

'■6'/ '. l Q * V*

PRINTED BY WILLIAM OSBORN,

88 William-street.

1842.

?

y\ i

College op Physicians and Surgeons,

New-York, October 29th, 1842.
Dr. D. J. Macgowan,
Dear Sir,

At a meeting of the Temperance Society of the College of Physicians
and Surgeons of the University of the State of New- York, held this day, the under-
signed were appointed a committee to request for publication a copy of your inte-
resting and valuable address delivered before them on the evening of the 23th inst.
They feel that there is a peculiar appropriateness in this request to one, who was a
former President of this Society and our late delegate to Europe, and whom we
hope to have as our future correspondent from those scenes of your medical mis-
sionary labors in the Eastern world, for which you are on the eve of embarkation.
It is with great pleasure that they execute their commission, hoping for a favorablo
answer.

Respectfully,

Your obedient servants,

N. Cheever, President.

J. H. Ross,

John Snowden, ^ Committee.

D. P. Holton, M. D., Cor. See.

S. F. Green, Rec. Sec.

The undersigned, having heard Dr. Macgowan's address at the public meeting
of the Temperance Society of the College of Physicians and Surgeons, join the
above committee in requesting a copy for publication.

Willard Parker, M. D;
Joseph M. Smith, M. D.
Charles A. Lee, M. D.
Wm. R. Wagstaff, M. D.
J. N. McLeod, Pastor of the

Reformed Presbyterian Church.

New-York, Oct. 29, 1842.
Gentlemen :

Your note in relation to the remarks made last evening, has just come to hand.
I feel persuaded that, through want of time and ability, I have not done the subject
justice, yet if you deem them worthy of publication, they are at your service.

Be assured, gentlemen, that I shall ever feel happy in co-operating with you for
the promotion of the great objects you have in view.

Devotedly yours,

DANIEL J. MACGOWAN.
To Messrs.

N. Cheever, President.
J. H. Ross,
John Snowden,
D. P. Holton, M. D., Cor. Sec.
S. F. Green, Rec. Sec.
Professor Willard Parker, M. D;
Professor J. M. Smith, M. D.
Professor Charles A. Lee, M. D.
Wm. R. Wagstaff, M. D
Rev. J. N. McLeod.

TO

JOSEPH MATHER SMITH, M. D.,

PROFESSOR OF THE THEORY AND PRACTICE OF PHYSIC AND CLINICAL MEDICINE

COLLEGE OF PHYSICIANS AND SURGEONS

OF THE UNIVERSITY OP THE STATE OP NEW-YORK,

THESE PAGES
ARE RESPECTFULLY INSCRIBED,

BY HIS GRATEFUL PUPIL,

I). J. M.

IRREGULAR
PAGINATION

PAGE(S)

N0._hS

TEXT IS COMPLETE

ADDRESS.

Gentlemen :

You are associated together in your professional capacity
for the extermination of a great moral evil ; the object is an appro-
priate one, and eminently worthy your attention. The allevia-
tion of human misery and physical suffering however produced,
whether by natural or artificial causes, is the appropriate province
of the healing art. Hence the medical philosopher is often no
less interested in those questions which relate to the intellectual,
than such as concern the physical man. Our proper study is
man — in a state of health and when suffering under disease, in
that microcosm of curious workmanship, his body, and in his
moral nature, so far at least as it acts upon his corporeal frame.
As a knowledge of those material agents which powerfully affect
the human body, is requisite to constitute an educated physician,
so also is it often of the highest moment that he should make
himself acquainted with those principles and institutions, which
are found powerfully to influence the mind. It has been often
asked in the language of a great poet —

" Who can minister to a mind diseased ?"

We answer, difficult as is the task, it is often necessary to attempt
it. It is frequently the indispensable duty and the highest triumph
of the accomplished practitioner to heal the maladies of the body,
by attacking the mental influence which has produced or exas-
perated them.

The reciprocal action and reaction of the informing spirit upon
the material frame it occupies, whether either of them be in a
sound or a suffering state, are so intimate, that religious belief and
all kindred subjects become thus for certain purposes, and within
certain limits the legitimate object of medical inquiry.

Spread as the great family of mankind is, over many lands,

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and under great diversities of appearance and manners, but re-
taining under all varieties of climate and condition, of custom,
and of law, the same great features, the researches of the travel-
ler, and the voyages of discovery, making us acquainted with
these varieties, add to the resources of our profession.

Entertaining, gentlemen, as you do, these enlarged views of
that noble science which you have chosen as the profession of
your lives, and having in view the promotion of virtue amongst
men, you will not consider the theme selected for the present
occasion as inappropriate. Your attention is therefore solicited
to some remarks on the claims which the missionary enterprise
has upon the medical profession.

"We are aware that a subject so wide in its range, and so
momentous in its relations, requires for its elucidation an ability
which we cannot hope to bring to the discussion. We rejoice,
however, that in some of its many connexions, this cause has
already elicited zealous and abler advocates. Yet the field is
both so extended and so fertile, that we may succeed in present-
ing some considerations on the subject which may not be without
their interest.

If we regard the object of christian missions but as men, de-
siring the advancement, elevation and happiness of our common
kind, it will strongly commend itself to all the better feelings of
our nature. Though greatly embarrassed in its operations by
the prevailing apathy which it was so difficult to disturb, and by
the inadequate resources with which it has been sustained, the
missionary enterprise has, within the brief space of half a cen-
tury, effected an incalculable amount of good. It has humanized
savage tribes, fixed the roving, and reconciled the warring ; it has
deprived the cannibal of his prey by implanting in him a distaste
for his horrid banquets. It has extinguished the fire of human
sacrifice, and snatched from the grave its living victims. It has
elevated woman from a brutish degradation to the enjoyment of
that equality for which she was originally destined, the companion,
the counsellor, and the friend of man, and no longer the sport of
his passions, or the victim of his cruelty. Others it has taught
to forsake the filthy cave or the squallid hut, and to erect com-
fortable dwellings, to till the soil, and to cultivate the arts. The
plough, the distaff", and the shuttle, have been among its presents
to-the barbarous tribes it has visited. It has given to them written
languages, an infant literature, and that great agent of civiliza-

tion, the press. It has erected for them, school-houses and sanc-
tuaries, and has afforded protection to human rights, by furnish-
ing in many cases written constitutions and laws, where the de-
spotic will of a sanguinary chieftain had before been the law of
a subject nation. But above all to secure them these and greater
blessings, it has given in their own tongue, the Bible : that book
which, as the dying Locke so justly remarked, " has God for its
author, salvation for its end, and truth without any mixture of
error for its contents."

We need not trespass alike on your patience and your time by
enumerating all the blessings which have attended modern mis-
sions. They have accomplished all this and yet more, and they
have done it, be it remembered, in behalf of classes and tribes
whom many philosophers deemed utterly irreclaimable, and whom
statesmen had doomed to inevitable destruction before the wasting
vices of civilization and the lawless encroachments of the colonist

Such are some of the claims this hallowed cause has upon our
sympathies as members of the great human family. It com-
mends itself also to those feelings of patriotism which we love to
cherish, for this " Mercy is twice blessed." Well has its history
illustrated the truth of holy writ, that " it is more blessed to give
than to receive." The reflex effect of the Foreign Missionary
cause has been to exert a most salutary moral influence through-
out the entire length and breadth of our country. Our commerce
has been extended and protected by it. Wherever our country-
men meet an American missionary, they find in him an unpen-
sioned consul and an untiring friend. It has caused the American
name to be revered in many climes where otherwise it was but
little known, or where known, unfavorably. Our valiant navy
has not done more to make " the star spangled banner" respect-
ed, than has been done by our fellow-citizens the missionaries of
the Cross, who have gone forth armed, but in the panoply of faith
and charity, and with the book of God as their chosen weapon.
In England the far-reaching eye of commercial enterprise, has
honorably recognised the missionary cause as one which is ac-
complishing much for traffic, and which is destined to promote it
yet more extensively. The Common Council of the City of
London, aware of the advantages accruing to that mercantile
community, in the emporium of the commerce of the world, from
missionary labors, but a few years since voted £500 to Williams,
the lamented martyr of Erromanga, to be expended in purchasing

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a missionary ship, " not," say they, " as forming a precedent to
assist merely religious missions, nor as preferring any sect or
party, but to be an extraordinary donation, for promoting the
great cause of civilization and the moral improvement of our
common species." Nor are there wanting merchants in our own
country, equally liberal in aiding the cause, and equally emphatic
in the testimony they bore to its immediate and beneficial influ-
ence on the peaceful pursuits of commerce.

Nor is it only philanthropy and patriotism which require that
we should give our aid and sympathy to this the great work of
our age, but a further inducement is to be found in that desire for
the promotion of science, which characterizes the intelligent phy-
sician. This feeling should induce us to labor for the prosperity
of christian missions as being identified as well with the interests
of science, as with those of humanity and religion. As members
then of a profession which is allied to every department of human
knowledge, and bringing from every field its remedies, and lend-
ing to every sphere and class its aids, we shall find that this cause
presents peculiar claims upon us, which we may not disregard
W'thout incurring the reproach of insensibility and selfishness.

A leading statesman and philosopher of France, the acute and
profound Guizot, has remarked before the Academy that missions
would make the world known to itself. AVe have frequently evi-
dence of the justness of the observation. Science in all its de-
partments is continually receiving new acquisitions from the
labors of those devoted men, who are thus contributing indirectly
to the advancement of our art.

The missionary enterprise promises again to make great and
valuable additions to our materia medica. There are extensive
portions of the globe as yet unexplored, which doubtless abound
in vegetable and mineral treasures. These will not be brought to
light by the mere traveller, but by those who reside for long pe-
riods in the country, and who are enabled to make minute and
leisurely investigations. The materia medica of China encum-
bered and deformed as it may be with inert medicaments,* yet
when better known to western nations, will doubtless be found to
possess some valuable medical agents, chiefly derived from the
vegetable kingdom. In this connexion, it is worthy of remark

* One of these is tigers' bones. The Chinese physician reasons thus, the tiger is
a very strong animal, and the bones are his strongest parts ; they must therefore
possess powerful tonic properties ! They are accordingly employed in debility.

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that we are indebted for the discovery of that invaluable medicine,
the Cinchona, or as it was long called the Jesuit's bark, to a class
of missionaries, who, however, have done more, it is feared, for
science than for pure religion. To that distinguished missionary,
Dr. Carey, the scientific world is much indebted for its know-
ledge of the Flora of India, and his botanical labors alone should
cause him to be considered as a benefactor of our race.*

A growing disposition seems evident in our own as in most
other branches of practical science, to make a common stock of
all the knowledge of all nations, and to profit by the method of
distant lands, and the discoveries of foreign and recent inventors.
Thus it may be found that the East, far inferior as it is to us in
extent of knowledge, yet has modes of treatment, and peculiar
remedies, that becoming known to them by some bold experi-
ment, or by some happy casualty, will deserve to be imitated and
improved by us.

That colossal empire in the East, whither all eyes are' now
directed, has possessed men who, by long experience and careful
observation, have attained to some degree of excellence in the
healing art, but they have often been the victims of their skill.
A surgeon by the name of Whato, who flourished about the
twelfth century of the christian era, was put to death, and his
works were burned on account of his proposing to relieve the em-
peror, by performing the operation of trepaning. Tradition re-
presents him to have been a bold and successful practitioner, and
to him it is supposed reference is made by a poet, who speaks of
a surgeon in that age as having removed a pearl from the eye,
language which has been construed, as describing an operation
for the removal of cataract.

There can be no doubt then, that pagan lands present a wide
field for scientific research. Not only their peculiar diseases, but
also their botany, zoology, geology, mineralogy, and kindred
subjects, will prove interesting and profitable subjects to the mis-
sionary physician.

Of their diseases some are new varieties of those long familiar
under mild forms to us, others, are here entirely unknown, as the
hideous and hateful leprosy, a form of suffering of which even
our most crowded hospitals exhibit no specimens, which must
therefore be studied abroad to be studied successfully. But others

* TheLeper's Hospital, near Calcutta, was founded through the instrumentality
of Dr. C.

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there are, that springing as by some mysterious law in the East,
that cradle of our arts and knowledge and religion, have found
their rapid way over deserts and oceans, and completed, ere their
desolating march was stayed, the entire circuit of the globe.
Thus it was that but a few years since the Asiatic cholera rolled
its cloud of devastation onward from its eastern home, across all
intervening barriers, and through all forms of civilization and of
barbarism, until the epidemic of Hindoostan, wasted at noon-day
in the streets of our western world. To cope with such migra-
tory diseases, may not some advantage be gained by the physician,
who shall in his missionary labors, meet them, as in their own
original domicil, and study them where they first make their ap-
pearance ?

Of the physician it is the high and honorable boast, that with
him science is merely the necessary means, to an important end,
that all his knowledge is eminently practical and its great pur-
pose benevolent. It is his province to assuage human suffering,
in all its varieties and aggravations, and, in imitation of the Saviour,
■' to heal all manner of diseases."

To extend the influence of science then, thus reduced to an
ark of mercy, in the form of a profession, is obligatory upon us,
not only from gratitude to the missionary as a fellow laborer in
the fields of science, and from regard to the heathen as members
of the great brotherhood of man ; but also because many regions
of the pagan world are at this time enduring fearful miseries,
which they trace directly and undeniably to their intercourse with
our commerce and our civilization. The voyager has often dis-
covered some far island of the deep, only to corrupt and enslave
its inhabitants. The science and civilization and the commerce
of the lands from which he sailed, owe then a long and large
arrears to the tribes who in their new vices, and their novel and
hideous diseases, present some of the fearful marks of a corrupt
civilization. If we have wounded it is but just at least that we
should strive to heal. Our people have entailed upon pagans
some of the most loathsome and frightful contagions to which the
human frame is liable, in this way mutilating their manly forms,
poisoning their offspring, and rapidly depopulating the beautiful
islands they inhabit. If this subject were probed it would disclose
a mass of iniquity and suffering, sufficient to appal every right
feeling. Superadded to this source of misery,

" And worse than all, and most to be deplor'd,
" As human nature's broadest, foulest blot,"

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these unhappy people are suffering from British opium, and
others from American rum, evils more blighting, because from
their fascinations more likely to spread, and to endure than the
most terrific pestilence. Here is a vast amount of wretchedness
produced by civilized man, which as civilized men, we, by our
skill and experience, should strive to alleviate, nor is it too much
to say, that we have it in our power in a measure to save some of
these races from entire annihilation. Medical science may thus
become more than the fabled wand of Esculapius, and in its
humble manner be like the brazen serpent raised by the pro-
phet in the wilderness, mighty to save a nation from impending
ruin.

Accustomed as from centuries of experience the physician in
civilized lands has become, to give to the chamber of sickness all
the consolations and cares of the most watchful tenderness, guard-
ing his patient from the air and the light, lest they would too rude-
ly reach him, and in diet, and in attention, consulting unceasingly
his state of feebleness and suffering, he cannot but feel more sen-
sibly than any other class, the cruelties of heathenism, and the
butchery of those tender mercies which it affords to the sick and
the dying. The treatment to which invalids are subjected in those
lands where the gospel does not exert its power, should excite in
us our deepest commiseration. The Brahmin priest chokes often
the sick Hindoo with handfuls of the mud of the Ganges, some
are burned, and others are buried alive, who with care and skill
in the treatment, might have speedily recovered. At times the
enfeebled, the aged, and the dying, are brought to the banks of
the sacred river, and there exposed to the burning sun ; the mouth
and nostrils filled with mire, or the wretched sufferers are held up
in the river, and water is poured down their throats until they ex-
pire, or they are left naked to be tormented by clouds of insects
which soon cover them. No entreaties of the wretched invalid
are regarded by his murderous relations. Should he survive after
being left for dead, he is beaten down with a hatchet or other
weapon. And China, though she has attained the highest de-
gree of civilization, of which a nation is capable without the gos-
pel, presents perhaps more physical suffering, from want of medi-
cal knowledge, than any other portion of the globe. The im-
mense multitude of blind who crowd the streets of her cities, are
ample evidence of the ignorance of their physicians. Their
blindness is frequently the result of a simple opthalmia, which with

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ordinary attention on the part of a good surgeon, would have
been speedily subdued, and without the least unpleasant conse-
quence ; still more suffering is, however, in the earlier stages and
lighter forms of sickness, occasioned by neglect and indifference
on the part of those who surround the sick bed. The missiona-
ries in the Sandwich Islands find it very difficult to prevent the
more palatable and inviting viands which they prepare to tempt
the appetite of the sick, from being devoured by their friends. In
all works designed to meliorate such evils as these, physicians can-
not fail to take an interest. They must sympathise in those be-
nevolent undertakings, whose object is the removal of all such
cruelties ; — undertakings that, while aiming first to meet the wants
and remedy the maladies of the deathless soul, consult also for the
relief of each bodily ailment, which would assuage all suffering
and raise beside the school-house and the christian sanctuary, the
christian hospital. Ancient heathenism knew not the orphan-
house, the infirmary, or the hospital. To Christianity we owe
these, and the healing art must ever cherish a grateful sympathy
in the labors that extend this beneficent religion.

We have again professional inducements to foster the work of
the missionary, because of its connexions with some of the gravest
and most litigated problems in physiology. Medical philosophers
have by their writings, at length demonstrated the common origin
of our race, thus corroborating, by scientific research, the revealed
fact, " that God created of one blood all nations of the earth."
Blumenbach, Cuvier, Pritchard and Morton, concur in the support
of this truth. Physiological and anatomical investigation go to
establish it conclusively ; does it not become then a profession
which declares mankind to be one great brotherhood, to sympa-
thise with those who are striving to elevate our degraded brethren,
and shall we not give our ardent co-operation to this labor of love 1

There is another consideration which gives the cause we are
now aiming to commend a peculiar claim upon the benevolent
feelings of medical men. Their services are greatly needed by
those who have gone out from among us, to rear the standard of
the Cross in unhealthy and inhospitable climes, where the life of
the laborer from our Western shores is generally cut short by un-
timely death. The good effected has been at an immense sacri-
fice of valuable lives ; the missionaries earnestly entreat us to
afford relief. A bereaved husband who had thus lost the nearest
of earthly connexions, in losing the wife of his youth, was thus

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led to say that he would fain stand upon the grave of his wife,
and lift up the voice of his appeal until it was heard all over
America. Woman, with that heroic devotion to humanity and
religion, which always and every where characterizes the sex,
has gone forth in obedience to Him whom she deserted not when
hanging on the Cross, to carry to the dying heathen the consola-
tions of the gospel. Among the thousand blessings of that home
she has quitted, the loss which she often feels most keenly, is
the want of that unremitting medical skill and kindness, whichy
though equally needed by her abroad, are there all unknown.
Does not every generous and manly feeling prompt us to afford
the resources of our art to those who so touchingly and eloquently
implore our aid, and who deserve so well at our hands ?

The facilities afforded the physician for commending Chris-
tianity to the degraded and benighted heathen, are so great that
it would seem his imperative duty,— -if not going himself to the
rescue, — to co-operate in every possible manner with those who
have gone forth. There are none of us who are not indebted to
that gospel, in the order and freedom it has established amongst
us, and in the science it has cherished, and the arts it has aided
to cultivate. The physician has access to communities and fami-
lies in heathen lands as a missionary laborer, where the evangelist
is not permitted to enter. He has it in his power at once, to give
to the distrustful heathen palpable demonstration of the benevo-
lence of his errand. This he can do with comparatively an im-
perfect knowledge of the sufferer's language. The minister of
the gospel, on the other hand, can do nothing of his appropriate
work without the language. He is compelled to toil long, and
amidst obloquy and reproach, before he can convince his hearers
that he is actuated by disinterested motives, the existence of
which class of feelings it is exceedingly difficult for the pagan to
believe.

" A word in season, how good is it V and at no season is man
more docile and teachable, than when suffering under bodily
affliction, it is then, that a kind and earnest exhortation from the
physician makes deep impressions, which frequently result in that
moral change which, in sacred writ, is termed a " new creation."
What an immense power for good can the physician in any land
wield, and how fearful is the amount of responsibility it involves !

The divine missionary himself blended with the heavenly wis-
dom of his doctrines the winning energy of his .miracles j with

2

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his preaching, he united the healing of the sick, the restoring of
sight to the blind, and the causing of the lame to walk. Our
Saviour knew what was in man, and that the healing of his bodily
infirmities often served to soften his heart and make it accessible
to the truth; he accordingly employed this as an ally to his minis-
trations and directed his followers to proceed on the same prin-
ciple. Amongst the earliest of his laborers was Luke, " the be-
loved physician," who accompanied the great Apostle of the Gen-
tiles in his missionary travels. To this member of our profession
belongs the distinguished honor of being the first historian of the
christian church. It is to be hoped that soon every Paul may
have a Luke for his companion.

The call that is wafted by almost every breeze from pagan
lands for the medical missionary, has met with a response from
many, and the success that has attended their labors is so mani-
fest and gratifying, that we must accord to the system which em-
ploys them our hearty approbation. We appeal then here, to
the past experience of missions, recent and brief as this history
as yet is, in favor of this form of labor.

The late Dr. Price, through his professional services in Burmah,
obtained an influence over the Court of Ava, and the Lord of
the Golden Throne, as the emperor is called, which promised the
happiest results. The royal family and nobility had entrusted to
him the education of their children ; and had his life been spared,
he perhaps might have prevented the expulsion of the American
missionaries from that country, an event which has since taken
place. A similar influence had been won at the same court by
his predecessor, Felix Carey, who was also a practitioner of
medicine, no less than a missionary.

But it is in China, that the medical art is likely to prove most
efficacious as a coadjutor to the gospel. Drs. Colledge and
Parker have, by their hospitals in that empire, already done much
to dispel the prejudices of the Chinese, and to impress them with
more enlarged and liberal feelings towards the barbarians of the
West. The hospitals which philanthropy has planted on their
borders, are accomplishing more than the artillery of the whole
civilized world would effect, in breaking their great wall, not
that which repelled the Tartars of the North, but the loftier and
stronger barriers of pride and prejudice, which have made them
scorn all other lands and people as vassals and barbarians. A
dozen surgeons, armed with their scalpels, can do more in this

15

way than legions of bayonets. Our science and our religion are
ample remedies for all the evils these three hundred and sixty
millions of people suffer. The medical knowledge of Gutzlaff
has availed him much in his excursions along the coasts of China.
This interesting people are beginning to appreciate the value of
our medical knowledge, and gladly avail themselves of its bless-
ings when proffered them.

Is further evidence desired of the importance of medical men
to the cause of missions ? Behold Dr. Grant, armed only with
his needle for the removal of cataract, forcing mountain passes,
and amidst ferocious warriors, winning his way to their homes
and their hearts. On account of his professional skill, he was
enabled to traverse in safety regions heretofore untrodden by
civilized man ; where inevitable death met the ordinary traveller,
and in whose denies an army would perish in attempting to
effect a forcible entrance. Dr. Grant is'now successfully minister-
ing to the spiritual and temporal necessities of the Independent
Nestorians.

We might quote to the same effect, the statement of Dr. Brad-
ley with regard to Siam. He is stationed at Bankok in that king-
dom. " Such was the crowd and the urgency of many of the
cases," says Dr. B., " that it was utterly impossible to prevent
our houses from becoming hospitals. If, from a sense of duty to
ourselves and families, we were constrained to close our doors
against the sick, they would still crowd themselves into our veran-
dah and thus cast themselves on our compassion. The relatives
and acquaintances of many who were literally all corruption,
'helpless and hopeless,' brought them to our doors and then for-
sook them. Thus our abode was almost constantly the scene of
the groaning, the dying and the dead. Never can I forget the
horror that brooded over us at that time. It was a salutary ini-
tiation into medical service in Bankok. While every thing possi-
ble was done to relieve the temporal condition of the people, I
also gave them christian books, and set in operation a system of
reading, by which it was hoped their minds would be benefited."
This alumnus of our institution succeeded in introducing inocu-
lation, and subsequently the blessings of vaccination into Siam,
thus becoming the Jenner of an empire of four millions.

Dr. Scudder of Ceylon, also an alumnus of this college, in his
appeal to pious physicians, says of the natives, " when they have
seen me amputate, or heard of my amputating limbs and per-

16

forming the operation for cataract, tapping in dropsy, <fcc, they
have called me the god of this world, and a worker of miracles.
In point of miraculous powers, they have said I have borne away
the palm from their great idol Corduswammy." Dr. S. thinks
there should be a pious physician attached to every missionary
station..

In Africa, and in the islands of the Pacific, in India, and in
Syria, American physicians are now devoting their best energies,
for the propagation of that religion which brings peace on earth
and good will to men. Many of those also are alumni of this in-
stitution. The missionary periodicals teem with most interesting
statements from our countrymen who have gone out in the capa-
city of missionary physicians, and no one possessed with ordinary
benevolence, can peruse their narratives without feeling a deep in-
terest in the success of the undertaking. The pages of the Chi-
nese Repository abound with records of cases treated in China
and Siam, which are as valuable to medical science as they are
cheering to mercy and truth.

The American Board of Commissioners for Foreign Missions
appear to have adopted as their settled policy, to place a physician
at every considerable station, They have now in their service
eighteen physicians, the greater part of whom are laymen, some
being, however, at the same time ordained ministers,

The plan seems to meet the favor of British christ'ans,
amongst whom an eminent clergyman of the English establish-
ment, the Hon, and Rev. Baptist W. Noel has said, in his excel-
lent work on Christian Missions, " this experiment of making a
christian physician the coadjutor of several ordained evangelists,
has so far answered in several of the American Missions, that the
practice has been extending, and we ought surely to profit by
their experience."

The London Missionary Society, a few years since, made a
strong appeal to English practitioners, through the columns of
the London Lancet, desiring their co-operation in promoting me-
dical missions, This society has now several medical gentlemen
in the field.

The French Foreign Missionary Society is making arrange-
ments to send out a competent physician to their flourishing sta-
tions in South Africa.

It is a favorable omen, that medical men in England and Scot-
land, have manifested much interest in this form of usefulness.

IT

Several societies have been formed amongst them, whose object
is to promote Christianity in heathen countries through the agency
of their profession. The late Sir Henry Halford, President of
the Royal College of Physicians, delivered an address on " the
results of the successful practice of physic" before a meeting of
that body, which was attended by the ministers of the crown, and
some of the principal nobility of the land. In this discourse Sir
Henry enters at length into the question of promoting the sacred
truths of our holy religion, by employing the resources of medi-
cine in conjunction with the preaching of the Gospel, thus casting
the weight of his influence as a distinguished and successful prac-
titioner in favor of this good work.

The Royal College of Surgeons in London, have agreed to
educate a certain number of Chinese youths to promote the object
in view. Nor has our own venerable Alma Mater been slow to
express the same sympathies, and has extended cheerfully and
without charge, the advantages of her valuable lectures, her mu-
seum, her demonstrations, and her clinical instruction, to all mis-
sionaries desiring to avail themselves of the opportunity of attend-
ance. In several of our cities, including New- York, there exist
associations of physicians, whose design is to promote the same
humane and christian object. It is proper that it should be so,
for a very large proportion of all the medical missionaries abroad
are our own countrymen.

AVe have hitherto spoken mainly of the past and prospective
temporal benefits of the Missionary enterprise, but, gentlemen,
while you rejoice at this the dawning of a brighter day upon our
race, you are at the same time fully aware that the first, and
highest, and holiest claims of this cause rest on the fact, that it is
an instrument which diffuses spiritual blessings wherever it is per-
mitted to operate. The temporal advantages, great and manifold
though they are, yet in the estimation of the christian are but as
the light dust in the balance, in comparison with those which ac-
company the conversion of one soul. Astronomy, in attempting
to convey an idea of th< immensity of the universe, finds terms
and figures totally inadequate, so much does it exceed the power
of language to describe, and so far does it transcend the capaci-
ty of the mind to imagine. It is so, when we consider the value
of an immortal soul. And when we remember, that in the judg-
ment of charity, one hundred and eighty thousand pagans have
already been regenerated by the Spirit of God through the in-

18

stru mentality of existing missions, all the meaner advantages of
the enterprise are forgotten in comparison, and the mind of the
inquirer vaults from the maladies, and the remedies, the arts, and
the improvements of earth, to the blessings, the deliverances, and
the triumphs of heaven, and the centuries of time vanish before
the cycles of eternity.

But it may be said, that such considerations are out of place
before a medical audience, that, as a class, their studies tend
to render them indifferent or sceptical as to religion. Materialism
has been supposed to prevail among medical men. The old pro-
verb said of our profession, that when three physicians met, two
atheists might be found. Such charges have been made, and
have perhaps produced an impression in some minds, that the as-
sertions were founded in truth. A slight examination will satisfy
the candid inquirer, that the study and the practice of medicine have
in fact a contrary tendency. We might, indeed, infer that such
would be the result, from a priori reasoning ; but let facts decide.

Hippocrates and Galen, though possessing but the dim light
which was reflected from the book of nature, recognised a super-
intending Providence, and did homage to the religion of their re-
spective countries. The illustrious father of our art, imbued with
such feelings, complied with the urgent calls of suffering humani-
ty in foreign countries, and visited them for the purpose of minis-
tering to their relief. His great commentator successfully coin-
bated the atheism of Rome, showing as Paley has since done,
the evidence of design in the structure of the human body. And
who that has studied anatomy will be surprised to learn, that by
its teachings Galen was enabled to vanquish that blind atheism
which would make man fatherless, and describe the world as the
handiwork of chance and ihe sport of fortune ?

Ambrose Pare, the father of French surgery, like his brother
Huguenots, was deeply imbued with the spirit of the gospel.
That priest-ridden monarch, Charles IX., caused his life to be
spared in the St. Bartholomew massacre, on account of his profes-
sional worth.

The immortal Harvey was strictly a religious man. Botcllus,
who introduced blood-letting into Europe, advises a physician, when
called to visit a patient, never to leave his house, without offering
up a prayer to God for the success of his prescription. Cheselden,
the celebrated English anatomist, was a man of prayer, and be-
fore performing an operation, his practice was to implore Divine
assistance in the presence of his class. Sir Thomas Brown, a

19

physician of considerable celebrity in former days, but more eminent
as a profound thinker, upon whose style Johnson's was modelled in
some measure, says in his Religio Medici, " I never hear of a
person dying, though in my mirth, without my prayers and best
wishes for the departing spirit, I cannot go to cure the bodies of
my patients, but I forget my profession and call unto God for his
soul."

Melchior Adam, an old German author, wrote an interesting
biography of pious physicians. Sydenham was a decided chris-
tian. Hoffman and Stahl were not ashamed of the gospel of
Christ. Of Boerhaave, it is said by Johnson, the great moralist
and philosopher of England, in his biography of that physician,
" as soon as he rose in the morning, it was throughout his whole
life his daily practice to retire for one hour for private prayer and
meditation. He often declared that a slrict obedience to the
doctrine, and a diligent imitation of the example of our blessed
Saviour, was the foundation of true tranquillity." Sydenham could
say, " the life which I now live in the flesh, I live by the faith of
the Son of God, who loved me and gave himself for me." Dr.
Hartley, so celebrated as a profound metaphysician, was equally
pious. So also was Dr. Fothergill. Hey, the surgeon, was as ce-
lebrated for his piety as for his genius. Zimmerman, when called
into Prussia by Frederick the Great to prescribe for him in his
last illness, made every effort to convince the unhappy monarch of
his fatal errors, and urged him to believe in the Saviour.

In like manner we might cite a host of names of distinguished
European physicians, whose precepts and example, afford conclu-
sive evidence that our science fosters, rather than checks religious
feeling, — such for instance as Linnaeus, Jenner, Denman, Stil-
ling,* Sir Charles Bell,t GoodJ and others. Dr. Rush, who refers

* In the general declension of piety that overspread the churches and schools of
Germany, much was done to counteract the growing irreligion by Jung Stilling, a
friend of Goethe, who in his memoirs alludes to him, as a singular example of trust
in Divine Providence. Although educated as a physician, he was not distinguished
in the walks of his own profession except as an oculist. In this branch his prac-
tice was most extensive and successful. His chief labors were directed to other
objects of general literature and religion.

t This great physiologist is the author of one of the Bridgewater Treatises on the
Mechanism of the Hand as illustrating the Wisdom and Goodness of God.

t The following memorandum and prayer having been found among the late Dr.
Good's papers, are annexed to his work, in compliance with the directions which
he left on the subject.

"July 27, 1823.
"Form of Prayer,
1 i Which I purpose to use, among others, every morning so long as it may please God

to several of those medical worthies, says, "the weight of their
names alone in favor of revelation is sufficient to turn the scale
against all the infidelity that has ever disgraced the science of
medicine." A memoir has very recently made its appearance
in England, of Dr. James Hope, distinguished as the author of
two most valuable treatises, one on morbid anatomy, and the other,
on diseases of the heart ; which latter has been pronounced the best
work of its class in existence. Of him it is there said, that when
taking leave of his father, and about to enter on the practice of
his profession, his parent said to him, with great dignity and solem-
nity, "Now, James, I shall give you the advice I promised, and if
you follow it, you will be sure to succeed in your profession ; first,
never keep a patient ill longer than you can possibly help ; second-
ly, never take a fee to which you do not feel justly entitled ;
thirdly, always pray for your patients." A short time before his
death, Dr. Hope said that these maxims had been the rule of his
conduct, and that he could testify to their success. Of his depart-
ing moments it is said, " his faith in the Lord Jesus Christ was
distinguished by purity, simplicity, and steadfastness ; his peace
and joy were unclouded by even one fear or doubt. He loved
to talk of his approaching departure, and of the glories which
awaited him. On one occasion he said, 'when we approach the

that I shall continue in the exercise of my profession ; and which is here copied
out, not so much to assist my own memory, as to give a hint to many who may per-
haps feel thankful for it when I am removed to a state where personal vanity can
have no access, and the opinion of the world can be no longer of any importance.
I should wish it to close the subsequent editions of my Study of Medicine.

" O Thou great bestower of health, strength, and comfort ! grant thy blessing upon
the professional duties in which I this day engage. Give me judgment to discern
disease, and skill to treat it ; and crown with thy favor the means that may be de-
vised for recovery ; for, with thine assistance the humblest instrument may suc-
ceed i as, without it, the ablest must prove unavailing.

" Save me from all sordid motives ; and endue me with a pity and liberality to-
wards the poor, and a tenderness and sympathy towards all ; that I may enter into
the various feelings by which they are respectively tried ; may weep with those
that weep, and rejoiqe with those that rejoice.

" And sanctify Thou their souls, as well as heal their bodies. Let faith and pa-
tience, and every christian virtue they are called upon to exercise, have their perfect
work ; so that, in the gracious dealings of thy Spirit, and of thy Providence, they
may find in the end, whatever that end may be, that it has been good for them to
have been afflicted.

" Grant this, O Heavenly Father, for the love of that adorable Redeemer who,
while on earth, went about doing good, and now ever liveth to make intercession
for us in Heaven. Amen."

Dr. Good made it a point to give his services gratuitously to missionaries. Mrs.
Judson, we believe, thus experienced his skill and kindness while in London.

21

invisible world, it is astonishing with what intensity of feeling we
desire to be there.' A few moments before he died, he uttered the
words, ' Christ — angels — beautiful — magnificent — delightful ; '
and turning to Mrs. Hope, said ' indeed it w.' "

The physicians and surgeons of our own land, who have shed
lustre on the profession, have generally been christians. Fore-
most in the list, is Dr. Rush, the Luther of the Temperance Re-
formation. All the works of this great man, are pervaded with a
spirit of deep piety. In his lectures he frequently enjoined upon
his class the importance of religion, and he particularly warned
them against neglecting public worship, ascribing to that habit,
the moral downfall of many physicians. He used to assure them
that to no other secular pursuit does the christian religion afford
more aid than to the medical profession.

Dr. Bard, the first President of the New- York Medical Society,
author of several valuable monographs, and the consulting physi-
cian to Washington, was remarkable for the fervor of his religious
feelings. Our metropolis has many names worthy of being asso-
ciated with those just enumerated, such as "Williamson, Charlton,
Cogswell,* Watts, Wright Post, Willet, Ives, and others, whose
thorough knowledge of their profession, so far from making them
sceptical, caused them to be more ardent believers in the gospel.
Dorsey,Wistar and Ramsay, might also be adduced to strengthen
our proposition. Dr. Thatcher, in his American Medical Biogra-
phy, seems to take pleasure in referring to the religious character
of those whose memoirs he writes, and his materials for this were
ample.

Some of those who have endeavored to engraft infidelity upon
our science, have made themselves ridiculous by the absurdity of
their theories, and the blind credulity of the attempt. Dr. Dar-
win, a man of genius but a rejecter of the gospel, could find for
the human race no more respectable parentage, in his infidel cos-
mogony, than the sedate and retiring oyster !f

But it would not be difficult to prove that those of them, who
examined the claims of the Bible, with the attention and earnest-
ness, which the subject deserved, were led to renounce their
errors. Amongst such men we might name Sir John Pringle,

* A correspondent of Cowper.

+ This was but an improvement on the theory of Lord Monboddo, who dated
our origin no lower in the scale, than to the monkey ; the Doctor only carried out the
idea ; had he lived in our day philosophic consistency would have induced him to
refer us to the sponge, which naturalists now agree in regarding as an animal.

3

22

who abandoned his scepticism and became a christian. Baron
Haller, after his conversion, wrote an admirable treatise in defence
of the Scriptures. He was eminent for genius as a poet, philoso-
pher and physician, and his virtues and talents won the applause
even of his scoffing cotemporary Voltaire. Dr. Bateman, the
great writer on cutaneous diseases, in the latter years of his life
disclaimed most earnestly his sceptical opinions, and embraced the
truths of the gospel. Professor Godman, the celebrated Ameri-
can anatomist, in the declining years of his career, from being a
decided deist, became, by the grace of God, a renewed man, and
died in the full hopes of a blessed immortality.

Nor should we omit the name of one, who gave the most strik-
ing proof of his attachment to the religion he had learned to
love, by going in a day when missions were little popular, as a
missionary to the Hottentots, then regarded as the most degraded
tribe of mankind, and by some even deemed the connecting link
between man and the baboon. Dr. Vanderkemp was, in his
native country, Holland, as a scholar and a physician, celebrated
for his talents and attainments. He was unhappily a sceptic,
but subsequently became a warm christian and a zealous mis-
sionary. He, who had been admired in the Universities of Hol-
land, in that age among the most eminent in Europe, carried to
the most brutish and degraded of saVages the light of life. He
was the founder of the South African mission.

We shall not speak of those now on the stage of action, but
merely remark, that at no previous time has the medical profes-
sion had, in proportion, so few infidels as at the present time.

We had recently an opportunity of observing, that in Paris
the influence of such writers as Voltaire, Diderot, and Helvetius,
is on the wane amongst the physicians and surgeons of a city
that may be called the medical metropolis of the world. There
are at present not a few in the profession in that city, who are
either nominal or evangelical christians. Men, too, who are not
unknown to fame.

A multitude of facts might be here adduced, to prove that pre-
cisely such objects as are contemplated by the modern missionary
enterprise, have ever interested many of the leading minds of our
profession, but we must waive this, as we have already trespassed
upon your patience.

There is then, a manifest propriety in calling upon a profes-
sion that has had so many eminent christians amongst its eminent

23

practitioners, to aid the missionary cause not only from philan-
thropic and scientific, but also from religious considerations.

A regard for the honor of our body requires at least, that we
should promote indirectly the object whose claims have been so
feebly advocated this evening, but which commends itself to all
the generous emotions of the heart, no less than to the approba-
tion of the intellect. We may support the cause by our influ-
ence and by our contributions, especially in sustaining the medi-
cal department. Associations of medical philanthropists might
assume in part the expenses for medicines, instruments, and
books, and receive in return, reports and communications from
the physicians aided.

But there are many who are bound to aid the cause directly,
by going in person to those moral wastes, and thus through pro-
fessional skill become instruments of spiritual and temporal good,
to that large portion of our race, who are sitting in the valley of
the shadow of death, sick and ready to perish.

A large number of pious physicians are now wanted for this
glorious work. Can such of them who have not yet settled
down in practice refuse to go without incurring guilt ? As chris-
tians, they are bound to occupy those posts where they can most
effectually serve their Lord and Master. The question, then, for
them to consider is, whether they can be most useful amongst the
perishing heathen, or amongst surfeited christians. The problem
given is to ascertain where, as a christian and as a physician, his
services are most required. No pious man, who has chosen this
profession, should fix unalterably his situation, without first in-
voking light and aid, where Harvey, Sydenham, and Boerhaave
sought it, making it a matter of serious prayer and self-examina-
tion, as to his duty respecting the last command of his Redeemer,
to preach the gospel to every creature. This, experience has
shown can be done in some degree by any believer who is im-
bued with its heavenly spirit. The call for personal consecration
to this truly sublime employment, is not only addressed to those
who have recently completed their preparatory studies, or who
are near doing so, but to all whose peculiar circumstances do not
absolutely forbid their entertaining the project.

The men needed for this work are such, and such only, as
possess the same self-denying spirit as the evangelist, and the
Lord and Master of the evangelist. The medical missionary
should have great singleness of purpose, never allowing his

24

secondary object, the healing of disease, and the promotion of
science, to become his primary one ; this honor should in his mind
belong only to the conversion of souls, else in the end he will prove
a stumbling block to the heathen, and a scandal to the Church.
He must literally give himself and that for life ; he must resolve
to live poor, and to die poor, looking for his reward to the great
Physician of our souls, and be content for the present, with the
rich luxury of doing good. So do, and the blessing of many
ready to perish will come upon you. The path to the grave will
not be made more gloomy, the season of suffering will not want
its consolations, and the dying hour beneath a foreign sky, far
from the old familiar scenes of home, will not be on that account
more terrible to him who knows that from any shore, the chris-
tian's ascent to his home, is speedy, safe, and sure, and that the
angels who bore from the rich man's gate, and from the wasted
and ulcerated body it was quitting, the emancipated spirit of
Lazarus, can with equal care and with equal fidelity, find their
commissioned way, to any scene, however remote, or solitary, or
rude, where the christian may be called to die.

Note. — Page 11.

At the Eighth Annual Meeting of the Temperance Society of this College, held
Feb. 23, 1841, Dr. Grant stated, that about seven years previous, he sailed from
Boston for the Mediterranean, in a small merchant vessel loaded with New-Eng-
land rum. In this vessel the missionary embarked — the antidote and the poison to
be wafted by the same winds to a distant shore. At Constantinople he took another
vessel, American built, and formerly used for the American slave trade, but then
commanded and owned by Englishmen. Her cargo also consisted of New-Eng-
land rum ! In passing from Smyrna, on his way to Persia, he was accompanied by
merchants. Here again he found one of the articles of their merchandize to be —
what ? — New- England rum ! From thence he proceeded to the more mountainous
regions of Persia, under the protection of a caravan, or company of merchants,
having with them about one hundred mules and horses, chiefly laden with New-
England rum ! Messrs. Smith and Dwight, in their travels from Constantinople to
the interior of Turkey and Persia, under a similar protection, when encamping for
the night, had the mortification of stumbling over casks of New-England rum !
He had found, in every section of Persia he visited, the inhabitants to be perfectly
ignorant of the English language. No — he was mistaken — not entirely ignorant of
our idiom, for every soul of them understood one monosyllable, and could clearly
and properly pronounce — rum !

V

CLAIMS

or THJB.

MISSIONARY ENTERPRISE

UN 'ItfH

MEDICAL PROFESSION.

BY DANIEL J. MACGOWAN, M. D.